


Spar

by scutchie



Category: Dorohedoro
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:28:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27547603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scutchie/pseuds/scutchie
Summary: Noi comes over in the middle of the night looking for a fight.
Relationships: Noi & Shin (Dorohedoro), Noi/Shin (Dorohedoro)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 32





	Spar

Blood splatters against the grimy ally bricks. A hammer meets with bone, cracking and sputtering. Over and over. 

Shin pulls his mask up exposing his mouth and nose, a bloodied hand streaking across his own cheekbone. He is panting and struggling to catch his own breath, he’s still got that wild look in his eyes. The adrenaline won’t back down yet. He hears a thud coming from behind the set of dumpsters, Noi just finished up her cleaning too. She walks over to where Shin is standing, a couple of black garbage bags trailing behind her. The rush of the fight still glows on her flushed cheeks, her shoulders heaving. They look at each other and Noi smiles. 

“Wow, you just beat me by a minute, senpai!” she beams.  
“Heh, guess so,” he gets out through heavy breaths. 

Shin glances down at the red pools by his feet and in the reflection he can see her smiling. It’s easier to look at her in second-hand ways like this, Noi feels often too bright to look at directly, like a blue flame or even the sun itself. 

“You alright?” she asks.  
“Yeah,” Shin shakes his head and laughs, “it’s nice to have a challenge for a change, isn’t it?”  
“You got that right!”

The two of them collect themselves and head back to the car, blood stained sneakers trailing a sticky path behind them. The car ride is quiet, which is unusual since Noi isn’t exactly the quiet type, but Shin figures she’s just as exhausted as he is. It was a brutal fight, one of the strongest groups of opponents the pair has had in a long time. A welcome break from the monotony of their usual days spent working. It seemed to have ignited something in the two of them, but drained their energy simultaneously, like when you drink too much coffee before going to sleep. 

Shin spotted a vending machine on a side road on their way back to the mansion, and stepped out of the parked car to grab two bottles of ice cold tea. By the time he’d returned to the car, Noi was already passed out, long eyelashes closed and resting on soft cheeks. Noi was a snorer, and a loud one at that so before Shin could spend another moment shamefully admiring her sleeping face he was interrupted by a loud snorting noise. 

Ugh, he thought to himself and closed the passenger door. The sudden jolt of the slamming door made his partner’s head lull to her shoulder opposite the window where it had been previously resting. It was a small car, Noi was a large person. Shin felt immediate warmth on his own shoulder, and a tickle of silver hair brush against his neck. He was still wearing his mask, but if he wasn’t his face wouldn’t have been a different color than it. 

He wanted to savor the moment, but his gut told him to get her off as quickly as possible and he reacted suddenly. 

“Noi get OFF!” he yelled, loud enough to wake her. She jolted up, she looked a little embarrassed as well, but maybe that was just the sleep on her face.  
“Sorry, senpai,” she yawned. He was thankful he was still masked, his cheeks felt hot underneath the fabric, his eyes not moving from the road they were fixated on. He didn’t respond, just kept on driving. 

Later that night, Shin laid down to get some sleep but found his head still racing so hard he couldn’t wind down. Was it the fight from earlier? Or was it…. 

No, it couldn’t be what happened with Noi. Even Shin found admitting his feelings to himself was damn near impossible, so he stuffed that awkward memory down and tried to recall the earlier fight. Replaying each movement in his mind, he eventually drifted off. 

He couldn’t have been asleep for longer than an hour when a booming knock came at the door. His eyes still closed, he got up to answer it. “Uh yeah?” he mumbled as it opened the door, forgetting he was wearing nothing but boxers. 

Noi stood there in the dim light of the hallway, Shin jumped back once he had processed what was going on. 

“Noi! Uh.. “ he stammered as he grabbed his robe off of a chair by the door, frantically throwing it on. “What do you want, it’s the middle of the night?” 

“Oh, I’m sorry senpai!” she stammered, “I guess I just couldn’t sleep.” She pushed her way past him and sat down on the chair the robe used to be on. 

Shin looked at her, bathed in the warm light, silver hair shining, tired eyes looking down at her own feet. She was wearing socks and an oversized night shirt, which didn’t do a great job at hiding the gentle curves of her arm muscles. Shin realized he’d been staring and remembered to open his mouth. 

“I had trouble sleeping too,” he said. “That fight was really something, huh?”  
“The fight, yeah! I think that’s it. I still feel all riled up.”  
“It felt like our first real one in…. Years.”  
“Do you want to maybe get some sparring in? I mean that’s why I came by, I’m sorry I woke you up though I really didn’t mean to. I just figured we both might still need to let out some leftover steam, you know?”  
“Oh..” Shin pondered this for a moment, a practice fight between them, at this hour? In… pajamas? His reasonable side screamed out, this is a bad idea! And boy did he know it was.  
“Sure, let’s go for it, Noi.”  
“Aww yeah! I knew you’d be up for a tousle.” 

The two had sparred more times in the past than they could count. It was a way to train, stay sharp, kill time when there was nothing else to do. But lately Shin had found sparring with Noi was getting to be a lot for him to handle. Over the course of their long partnership, there was always some tension between them, but it felt like over the course of the past few months it was getting thicker. After Noi had to save Shin from En’s mushroom outburst and passed her smoke from her lips to his own, something between them shifted. It felt similar to how it always had been, but the intensity of it had just been cranked up to the highest volume. Every time they were alone together in the car after a tough fight, you could feel it. Sharing bowls of ramen together, sitting across the table there was a closeness that had always been there, but an intangible distance now too. Like a wall you couldn’t touch, but one Shin felt in his bones. It was a distance a part of him wanted to close, but he always stuffed those feelings down. Did she feel it too? 

Noi got her feet and cracked her knuckles, Shin was still groggy from his brief sleep, but he threw on a t-shirt and was posed, ready for a fight. 

“Agh,” Shin wretched as a strong punch landed in his gut. He threw a kick at his partner, but missed. She caught his ankle and thew him against his back. She stood over him, for what felt like too long, Shin gazing up longingly. Shit I’m definitely blushing. He quickly snapped himself out of the trance, it was dark in the room, maybe she didn’t notice. Shin got up and tackled Noi from the side, pushing his weight into her ribs forcefully. Noi lost her footing and stumbled backwards. Not sparing a moment, she grabbed him by his forearms and flung him into the wall. His head crashing against the drywall, Noi smirked but there was a softness to her voice when she asked him if he was alright. Of course he was fine, and if he wasn’t she could heal him up easily, but it was nice to hear the concern in her voice regardless. 

When Shin got up from the floor, a streak of thick, warm blood remained on the wall where his head was just moments ago. His heart was pumping so fast he felt like he could barely see, but he threw another punch and it collided with Noi’s jaw. Before he could catch his breath from that winning blow, Noi’s fist came flying for his nose. He couldn’t even move to resist it, he was too struck by how the stream of blood coming from Noi’s bright red lips looked. One of her hands held Shin’s arm back, and her other fist collided with his nose. A loud crack split the silence in the room, bright red now gushing down Shin’s mouth from his nostril. 

He had felt the punch, a warm sting in his nose, but the feeling that screamed at him wasn’t coming from there. It was Noi’s strong hand grasping his wrist at the sutures. It felt warm, and soft and it was all he could focus on. Noi wasn’t sure what was distracting Shin, but she took this chance to throw him down hard on his back a second time. 

All he could do was look up at her again. 

“Senpai, um are you alright?” she questioned. “You seem off tonight, I’m sorry I came picking a fight when you were in the middle of sleeping…”  
“No, it’s not that. I’m fine. Just distracted.” 

She reached out a hand and helped him up to his feet. The two of them were standing almost nose to nose, Noi’s hand still clutching Shin’s. He really wished he had his mask on right about now. 

Their eyes were locked in on one another’s. Shin felt so small in that moment, so tiny compared to her, blood still dribbling down his chin, bruises covering his arms. Her nose softly grazed his for just a moment, and he started to sweat even more than he was from the spar. Was that an accident? He wondered. 

She pulled away from him and slowly his fingers slipped away from her sturdy hand, one by one. He tried almost to hang onto her, but decided against it. 

“Well, that helped me expend some energy! I’ll head back and let you get some rest, thank you for the fight, senpai.” Noi smiled and walked towards the door.  
‘Yeah, of course…”

He wanted to ask her to stay, but he couldn’t open his mouth to speak. He wanted to grab her hand and pull her back into the room, into his arms. But instead he stood in the doorframe watching her trail away. 

After what felt like forever, he swallowed the lump in his throat. He wasn’t sure if being tired made him vulnerable but he shouted, “Noi, wait!” and stretched out a hand. But she was beyond earshot and continued to walk to her bedroom. A part of him felt relief, but a wave of regret washed over him. Why didn’t he just speak up sooner? Why couldn’t he have taken her face into his hands when they stood so close? He closed the door behind him and slumped down on the floor leaning against it. Putting his hands in his lap, he drifted off to sleep as he sat there, back against the cold, hard door.


End file.
